to the evil that still possesses too largely the American heart. Despite the mighty panorama of divine events that has passed before this people, their hearts are hardened toward those for whom God has wrought such great delivWe are still cursed with a curse, even this whole nation. Chattel slavery is dead. Political slavery is nearly at an end. Social slavery still prevails. Trade yet shuts its gates against the aspiring and competent youth of this complexion. Pulpits yet bar their doors to the accredited and popular ministers of Jesus Christ as their regular pastors. Society too generally abhors their companionship. Aversion thus defiles the whole national heart.
The victims of our contempt feel the yoke of bondage with which we still burden their souls. The liberties they have won only make these chains the more galling.
Not until every such fetter is broken will God's controversy with America come to an end. To their removal these
pages are consecrated. The past is past; the future beckons us. The words that urged to duties done, call to the discharge of duties that must be done. May this crown be won and worn by the American people. They only need to conquer this prejudice, to become the model and the inspiration of all the nations of the earth. May Church, State, and Society, in all their life, speedily reveal the perfect cleansing of the American heart from the unbrotherly distinction of man from man. May the Father and Brother of all men, who has created them in His image, and seeks their unification in His grace and nature, hasten the accomplishment of this most desired of His earthly consummations.
Delivered at Amenia, New York, November, 1850, on the occasion
of the Passage of the Fugitive Slave Bill,
"Render unto Casar the things that are Casars's; and unto God the
things that are God's.".
![[ocr errors]](https://books.google.bs/books/content?id=AGcT_zZNCMsC&output=html_text&pg=PR13&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&q=unto&cds=1&sig=ACfU3U1zn475mVLqk1z2Klhv4QHVRW8uyw&edge=0&edge=stretch&ci=378,758,27,6)
ARGUMENT.-The need of examination of the principles of action, especially
when these principles are in controversy. The divided duty before every citizen of
the Free States; loyalty to country or to conscience. On what rests the obligation to
obey the State. I. Man the subject of law. 1. Distinction in the kind and authority
of law. Law of body and of spirit; of sensibilities, mind, and moral being. The
lower authoritative only, when not hostile to the higher. If man were holy, all his
nature would work symmetrically. Sin the disturber of this harmony. 2. The civil
government a creature of the social nature of man. It must therefore by virtue of
its origin be in subjection to conscience, or the higher nature, if any conflict arises.
II. How shall we know the relations of the human laws to the law of God? By
Conscience, by Providence, by the Scriptures. How act if such a decree is thus de-
cided to be wrong? Refuse to coöperate in its enforcement. Refuse to desist from
duties it forbids. Cast all our influence against it. III. Application to the Fugitive
Slave Bill. It comes from the State. Slavery, its nature; condemned by instincts,
conscience, Providence, and the Bible. Our duty, to refuse obedience; to befriend
these whom it outlaws, and to oppose it by voice and vote. IV. The plea of con-
stitutional protection. The Constitution a creature of civil government, and there-
fore of the social nature. It is consequently subject like that nature to the moral
sentiments. Its words allow liberty not slavery. Our trust in Christ not the Con-
s'itution. Encouragements in the conflict. No slave hunters in our borders.
ARGUMENT. -The nation around the corpse of Freedom. I. How was it slain?
By slow poison. By allowing the Constitution to recognize slavery; passing the
first Fugitive Slave Bill; enacting the Missouri Compromise; demanding Texas;
enacting the second Fugitive Slave Bill. Contrary movements. Present condition
of America; the propagandist of slavery. II. Our future. Signs of resurrection;
opposition in Congress of the party that enacted it; public sentiment; organized
societies; the Church; increased manumission. III. Need of humiliation and con-
fession; of political combination against it; of prayer.
ARGUMENT.- Why Christ suffered; how His suffering disciples participate in
His experience, though falling infinitely below it. The position of this sufferer as
compared with previous martyrs. Not himself assailed but his State, and her Ideas,
organized and regnant. His assailant not a man but an Idea, organized and deter-
mined on the supremacy I. Our guilt. History of its progress. II. Our repentance.
How to be established. 1. By penitence. 2. Brotherly feeling toward the slave.
3. Resumption of stolen Kansas. 4. The transfer of the government to the side of
liberty. III. Failure destroys liberty or compels civil war.
IV. THE NATIONAL MIDNIGHT.
Delivered at Westfield, Massachusetts, November 16, 1856, on the
occasion of the election of James Buchanan to the Presidency, . 87
"And when I looked, behold a hand was sent unto me; and lo, a roll
of a book was therein; and he spread it before me; and it was written
within and without; and there was written therein lamentations, and
mourning, and woe."― Ezekiel ii. 9, 10.
A.GUMENT. — The right and duty of ministerial utterance on national ques-
tions proved from Bible history and orders. Especial obligations in view of
the enormity of the national transgression. I. What has triumphed? 1. Not the
Democratic party. 2. Slavery. Study this victor; trace its power in a human being
from birth to death. Robbed of name, of parents, of education, of property, of
religion. What shall the end be if the victors retain their strength? Enslave-
ment of Kansas; because of their purpose, their necessity, and the fact that this is
the center of the conflict. This won, all is. 2. Extension of slavery to Oregon.
3. Annexation of Cuba and Central America as slave States. 4. Reopening of the
Foreign Slave Trade. 5. Suppression of freedom of speech, everywhere. 6. Adjudg-
ing slaves as property everywhere. Slavery must make these attempts. It must
advance or die. III. What has caused the defeat? 1. No real national sympathy
with the slave. 2. No earnest prayers for the victory of Freedom. 3. More anxious
to conquer a party than to abolish slavery. IV. Encouragements. None in the
ruling party. 1. First organized success of political anti-slavery in a single State.
2. A stimulant to friends of liberty in the slave States to organize against slavery.
3. The growth of the religious sentiment.
V. CASTE THE CORNER-STONE OF AMERICAN
Delivered on the occasion of the State Fast, at Wilbraham, Mas-
sachusetts, in 1854, and at Roxbury, Massachusetts, in 1858; also
delivered at the Forsyth Street Methodist Episcopal Church,
New York,
"We are verily guilty concerning our brother."— Genesis xlii. 21.
ARGUMENT. - Foundation for American Slavery. I. Not in man as man, but in
his color or origin. Scripture stolen to array an idol. This color is declared to be
a mark of degradation, and separation. II. This feeling, 1. General. 2. Deep-
rooted. 3. Unnatural. Because, (1.) Not towards any other class of men. (2). They
have the gifts of music, manners, the culinary art, aptness of imitation, wit and
humor, patience, and sunniness of temper. (3.) No repugnance to this color, as seen
everywhere else than in America. (4.) No disunity in spiritual nature. (5). Caused
by social condition. (6.) Contrary to the Scriptures. 4. The feeling is the chief
bulwark of American slavery. South could not resist the North were she free from
this prejudice. III. How shall it be cured? 1. Cease to dwell on the distinction of
color. 2. Welcome those of this hue to your society. 3. Encourage them to enter
all branches of trade. IV. Result, intermarriage; its right and fitness. True mar-
riage. Shakespeare's foresight and courage. Othello and Desdemona.
ARGUMENT. — Opening of a new act. Its influence. Its purport and effect. The
beginning of the end. It has taught the slaveholder his weakness. It has strength-
ened the heart of the slave. His right to liberty, even through blood. It will tend
to unite us to our enslaved brethren; stimulate all peaceful modes of assault on
slavery; abate the haughty assumptions of the slave power. The benefit of his
death, if he dies. Honors the American scaffold, as Vane, Russell, and Sidney did
England's. His future fame.
Address on the occasion of the execution of John Brown, December
2, 1859,..
ARGUMENT. — A new date in American Annals. A national day in character and
interest. The righteousness of his deed. His right to interfere to save his fellow-
men. Its wisdom. He wins the fight in his dying. The slayer slain.
|